Gene expression profiling from memory P14 T cells with control or mutated ThPOK. Mus musculus

We noticed that ThPOK repression is readily abrogated upon in vitro TCR stimulation of peripheral CD8 T cells. This observation prompted us to investigate a role of ThPOK in the CD8 T cell response to an acute viral infection. We observed that clonal expansion is significantly less in both primary and secondary CD8 T cell responses in the absence of functional ThPOK. To approach this mechanism, we carried out a microarray analysis for comparison of gene expression between ThPOKhd/hd and ThPOKwt/wt P14 memory T cells. Overall design: To identify genes either directly or indirectly regulated by ThPOK in CD8 T cells, we performed a microarray analysis of ThPOKhd/hd and ThPOKwt/wt memory P14 T cells. We analyzed gene expression profiles of memory cells since they showed the highest and most uniform ThPOK expression compared to not only naïve but also effector CD8 T cells. The two memory subsets were FACS purified during the memory phase, more than 100 days after LCMV infection.